


A Northwatch Spring

by devilinthedetails



Series: Cold Winds [3]
Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Bazhir, Duty, Gen, Northwatch, Scanran War, Violence, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:02:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25513978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilinthedetails/pseuds/devilinthedetails
Summary: Stationed at Northwatch, Zahir can see how much the Crown Prince longs for the excitement of battle.
Series: Cold Winds [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1835392
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	A Northwatch Spring

A Northwatch Spring

“I wish I’d been fighting a true foe instead of you, Sir Zahir.” The Crown Prince, Zahir noted without surprise, still insisted on addressing him by his full title rather than anything so informal as only his first name despite the long weeks Zahir had been protecting him as a personal member of his guard. “I want to be fighting Tortall’s enemies, not Tortallans.” 

Zahir and Prince Roald had been engaged in a practice duel behind the barracks in Northwatch’s courtyard, which explained the prince’s comment. Zahir had won, although the prince had put up a stout defense. He’d won most of his fights against allies and adversaries alike since he’d marched to Tortall’s far north to defend the Scanran border before the snows had fallen heavy and white last year, blocking the mountain roads and passes. That’s why he was still alive and why General Vanget had assigned him to be part of Prince Roald’s personal guard while he was stationed at Northwatch this spring. 

“You might find enemies to fight next time we ride out on patrol, Your Highness.” Zahir sat on a wooden bench across from the prince, his lips shaping awkward words of appeasement. He wasn’t lying, he told himself. It was possible that their patrol would stumble across an enemy that needed to be killed next time General Vanget permitted them outside the grim, encircling walls of Northwatch, but Zahir wouldn’t have taken that bet in any tavern. 

He knew the general was careful about the times and the territories he ordered Prince Roald to patrol. General Vanget would die before he would allow the Crown Prince to be exposed to any undue peril, and the redoubtable leader of the war against Scanra was certainly showing no sign of snuffing it at any point in the immediate future. 

He felt a chilly breeze blowing through the courtyard, tousling his sweaty hair like ruffling fingers. Spring this far north was a cold season for hard folk, but Zahir didn’t mind the cold because he was one of the hard folk, born and bred to endure in the burning sands of the Bazhir desert. To him, the cold was refreshing after a fight, and a bracing motivation before one. To him, it was a reminder of cool nights beneath clear desert stars. To him, it was a sweeping sensation of him because when he closed his eyes and let the wind hit him, he could imagine he was back among the dunes. Each time he opened his eyes was a heartbreak that only made him stronger. 

“A patrol is not what I need.” Prince Roald’s answer was clipped and precise—he was always precise, Zahir recalled that from as far back as page training—as he mopped perspiration from his brow with a pocket handkerchief. “A battle is what I need. I have to slay some of those wretched devices instead of just studying how to defeat them with Dean Harailt.” 

The prince’s chief duties at Northwatch consisted of healing the injured in the hospital, using his magic to examine the killing devices alongside Dean Harailt for weaknesses and clues into their macabre creation, and riding the patrols General Vanget would allow him. That was why he craved the excitement and adrenaline of battle. 

Once, many months ago, Zahir would’ve understood and shared that flaming desire for battle, but the war with Scanra had bled that desire out of him. He’d seen too much of the carnage and chaos of war to seek out battles that could find him instead. He’d heard the strange, almost childlike cries of the killing devices when he’d slain them, and the memory made him shiver on the bench in the courtyard now. Those cries sounded profane as grave robbery when they echoed in his ears, and he was certain that they would always echo in his ears in moments and conversations like this. 

“A battle is what you need,” Zahir heard himself repeating the prince’s words, cold and cutting as the north wind. “A bit of excitement. Something to spice up your life. That’s what you think battle is, don’t you, Your Highness?” 

“I think battle is a chance for me to serve my country.” Prince Roald’s nostrils flared—a sharp warning that he didn’t appreciate being questioned any more than his father did—and he glared at Zahir with eyes icy blue as a mountain lake. 

“You can serve your country best by staying alive.” Zahir’s jaw clenched at the prince’s stubborn refusal to recognize why General Vanget was so determined to protect him. 

“You’re my guard, not my councilor,” snapped Prince Roald. He sounded disconcertingly like his father when he snapped, Zahir thought, though he probably wouldn’t want to be reminded of that. He tended to bristle whenever he was compared to his father, and Zahir didn’t quite comprehend why. “You’re charged with protecting me, not advising me, Sir Zahir, and when I do desire your counsel, I shall ask for it.” 

In all their years of page training, Zahir could never remember hearing the Crown Prince snap at anyone for any reason, but in the weeks he’d been guarding Prince Roald at Northwatch, he’d heard him snap at a few people on a few occasions. Now he was snapping at Zahir for pointing out the truth he didn’t want to hear. 

Zahir wondered if the Crown Prince’s snappishness was a mark of increasing maturity, proof that he was hardening into the man who would be king upon his father’s death, or if it only meant that the prince was missing his betrothed and desperate for the confusion of battle to distract him from how much he longed to be reunited with Princess Shinkokami. 

It was impossible to know, and he definitely couldn’t ask Prince Roald. It’d only get him snapped at again. 

It was on the tip of Zahir’s tongue to retort that he was protecting the prince from himself, but, biting the inside of his cheek until he tasted the iron tang of his own blood, he stiffly inclined his head instead. “I’d never presume to advise a prince of Tortall.” 

A stony wall of silence built between them then and didn’t begin to come down until breakfast in the officers’ mess hall the next morning. Breakfast in the officers’ mess hall was reserved for the highest-ranking members of the army and the nobility stationed at Northwatch. 

Fare in the officers’ mess hall was supposed to be superior to what was offered in the mess hall where the common soldiers ate. This morning that meant rather than being served watery, gray porridge they had plates of black budding and bannocks with butter and blackcurrant jam. The black pudding, bannocks, and blackcurrant jam were all dishes favored in the far north, Zahir had learned in his time at Northwatch. 

“Forgive me for snapping at you yesterday, Sir Zahir.” Prince Roald was all politeness and pleasantry as he spread butter on a bannock. “I shouldn’t have lost my temper with you. It was most discourteous. I don’t know what came over me.” 

“It was the war.” Zahir thought he knew what had come over the prince. He bit into his black pudding. He tasted the pork blood and pork fat thickened with chunks of oatmeal and barely. The mixed spices of mint, thyme, and marjoram mingled and melted in his mouth. “The war makes us all lose our tempers from time to time, Your Highness.” 

“I don’t want the war to change me.” Prince Roald’s words were a hushed confession. 

“The war is changing us all, Your Highness.” Zahir sighed, shaking his head before resuming his attack on his blood pudding. “Whether we want it to or not.”


End file.
